i understand the struggle,
feel the pulse of breath under the moonlight
and the stars pulling in from edges
of great canopies like maps
twisting in from — and out towards
decisions one can’t make,
spiteful of fading mysteries,
curious of what futures bring
and ambling
up to mountaintops of might and will
down to valleys of guilt and tragedy, still
present here
present here
present here
until words bring floating spirits
soaring concepts twisting to altercation,
fine young wrinkles
with possibilities towards permanent etchings.

intention, intently.

i think the first time i really knew that i liked troy, for real, was when we were at the shpongle show. i don’t know what we were discussing, but his answer to some bit of perhaps unconventional unselfish behavior was, “i don’t know, i just really care about people.” or something to that effect. it’s too cute.

i just realized just now that our 6-month anniversary just passed, and we didn’t make a deal of it! ah, well. also, unrelated: their next record is going to totally rule…

i am reminded of this because i am going through my things and i’ve found some notices… three “talk to us” signs, one that says, “i want to encourage cross-disciplinary collabz.” (from new york and the whole wall street protest), and lastly, this poem. this is from when i was volunteering at helen swindell’s. i am a bit regretful that i went on my travels and then just stopped going there altogether. i had many people who i felt bonded to, but it just became a matter of whether i wanted to sacrifice my personal time for it. it’s selfish. and i feel bad, now. maybe sometime soon i will be able to start it up again, but at the heart of it was that, while i enjoyed my time there very much, there ended up being like three volunteers at any given time, and it felt unnecessary. i will say, though, at the time, that i felt like i had more real conversation with the residents there… ah, i’m sad. there are a few people i namely miss, which are:

- darcy, a lesbian lady who got stabbed and got her stomach ripped open to the point that they were hanging out;
- chris, the guy with whom i co-wrote the poem below… dude was always happy and encouraging smiles, and was really metaphysical and cosmic and out there and wanted to be some sort of counselor;
- ____, who i often discussed matters of space with;
- j___, who had formerly lived in hawaii and japan for a long time, and would always say konichiwa to me and minor japanese phrases (he knew i wasn’t japanese but knew that i knew some…) and took the only photo of myself at helen swindell’s that there is, and he had me draw an image for him or something which he kept;
- john, who always was teasing and giving shit and looked — strange to say — typically veteran-y, and always wore a cap! man, he gave so much shit, and was always saying how i was a trouble-maker…
- ____, who i somehow forget the face of now, which is crazy…! but he was definitely one that i enjoyed speaking with most… i had referenced him before, as i had discussed many things related to psychedelia and time-space with him…

it was just so interesting… all of them were so interesting, such remnants of the ’60s… i wish i could commit more. maybe soon when the weather is warmer…

here’s the joint poem i wrote with chris:

i can’t wait for the weather to get warmer again; i should really do “talk to us” again… i hadn’t written about this, but there were definitely girls (2) at the wall st. protest who had “talk to us” signs, and i directed them to my website and told them it was something that i did. i should really update i love social experiments with my new data…

anyway, in other news. pretty much been busy planning our sxsw show. here’s my initial teaser flyer for it…

gina and i spent the afternoon today holed up at pied cow, basically just writing letters. the primary aim was to write to caroline casey, the lady who gave us the venusian love ritual that we practiced, but i ended up writing back to a lot of people. it felt good to write, and kinda maddening to realize that man, do the hands get tired easy, simply because that stuff never happens anymore

i have a lot to write about. i was mulling over today that after sxsw — since i am touring with swahili — that i think i want to spend some time traveling or staying in california… since tour is two weeks+, it would be nice to be able to sublet out my room for that month and save that money. but i don’t know yet where i would go; the only place i kinda wanna go is new mexico, but last time, that become rather uncomfortable, so who knows… and i’m trying to save up money for spain and portugal in july, and i guess burning man in august, so it seems unlikely that i’ll be able to do all of the traveling that i actually wanna do. blOorg. i suppose if some cheap ass plane tickets to go to some south american country pop up between now and april, that that might need to be what happens. if not, probably a train or bus from reno to the bay area post-sxsw, for a couple weeks of mad work action. i don’t know, i don’t know, i don’t know.

i was discussing these plans and desires yesterday with troy, and he was apologizing for being a boyfriend that doesn’t have the money to travel. i told him it was fine; i don’t realistically expect anyone to be able to keep up with me in terms of traveling money and time. it doesn’t bother me… i just –need– to nomad life it, though… it’s already been way too long (like half a year… well i suppose it was only since october, so like, 5 months)… but i’m already feeling a bit mad and need to go somewhere really bad! and i guess i have been to california a couple times in that duration, but it’s not the same. the desire to travel is incessant, it’s crazy… :L but yeah, he was surprised that it didn’t bother me that he couldn’t afford to travel and said i am repeatedly “the first” but to me it’s just… it’s fine, because it’s realistic that other people can’t??? i dunno.

anyway…

we went to tao of tea tonight and drank this pine-smoked black tea. dude, it was so amazing. but it caffeinated me to the point of insanity! i’ve boycotted coffee and i feel wayyyy better, but it makes me feel nuts to drink hugely caffeinated stuff now. interesting.

ah, so much to do. i can’t decide WHAT to do. there’s just too much.

i gotta get to recording snippets from this:

it maybe seems a bit ridiculous, but this book “came to me” through a series of dreams, and like we all know, i really trust dreams. the first dream told me that i needed to look into learning about alchemy; it wasn’t so overt, but it was just the notion that i woke up thinking. i don’t remember anything else from the dream. a few days later, i was dream-land told that i should look into egypt. again, i don’t really know anything about it. that was when sherry was in town, though, and i took her to powell’s that day. i looked in the alchemy section — there barely is one — and there was ONE book about egypt. i saw it and thought it was totally incredibly ridiculous and could barely believe that THAT was the book i would “need” to read, but seriously, there was nothing else even remotely calling to me. so i was like, well, fuck, here it is.

what this book is is a series of meditations and visualizations that basically take you to deconstructing and rebuilding yourself. i had originally given myself a loose deadline of “finishing this” project by the end of april, but it has since changed, since troy asked me last week if i wanted to go to portland evolver meeting. legitimately, the evolver meeting we went to was totally fucking whack. however… coming up:

> Wednesday, February 22nd — Linda Star Wolf Evolver talk on “Visionary Shamanism”

linda star wolf is one of the authors of the egyptian shamanism book. it is WAY too much of a coincidence that she is coming, so i’m definitely going to: 1) record all of the meditations by the end of this month, preferably by the 23rd; 2) at least start to do the meditations, and ideally finish them, by february 22nd, so that i can talk to her about them.

i dunno what it’s going to yield. we will see. when sherry was here on my birthday, she was TOTALLY engrossed in that book and spent the whole of the evening almost reading it. yet, while she seems to find those things fascinating, i think she’s scared of them; i bought carl jung’s man and his symbols for her for christmas, and, as far as i know, she hasn’t delved into it yet. i think she’s kind of scared, and i asked her if that was the case, and she said yes. i think that books like that stir up the unconscious in a scary way, but i think sherry is totally ripe for it. i am sending her my book on monday. i sincerely hope that the book plants the seed that will cause her to read jung’s man and his symbols… i dunno what the fuck kind of “work” i am doing, but whatever it is, it feel really, important.

last couple notes, again relating to literature: evolver’s kent had mentioned this book >>>

and that is exactly the kind of mapping work i want to start doing. synopsis:

From a philosopher whose magisterial history of Western thought was praised by Joseph Campbell and Huston Smith comes a brilliant new book that traces the connection between cosmic cycles and archetypal patterns of human experience. Drawing on years of research and on thinkers from Plato to Jung, Richard Tarnas explores the planetary correlations of epochal events like the French Revolution, the two world wars, and September 11. Whether read as astrology updated for the quantum age or as a contemporary classic of spirituality, Cosmos and Psyche is a work of immense sophistication, deep learning, and lasting importance.

i can’t wait i can’t wait! i can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

blahblahblah. what else. man, there’s so much. but seriously, all i wanna do is write books.

but i just recently finally dropped the $45 to buy this fucking book that changed my life (i originally read it from shawn but the book is SUPER fragile and i can’t look at his anymore, especially since it was from his grandfather, and the binding is really fragile… and this book is fucking IMPOSSIBLE to find… it’s ridiculous):

i am definitely wanting to use it as a primer for how to solve the social problems of the world. tis going to require a shit ton of research and effort, but like i said… all i seriously want to do now is write books… sample from ends and means (that has made it into my book):

In the contemporary world there are two classes of bad plans — the plans invented and put into practice by men who do not accept our ideal postulates, and the plans invented and put into practice by the men who accept them, but imagine that the ends proposed by the prophets can be achieved by wicked or unsuitable means. Hell is paved with good intentions, and it is probable that plans made by well-meaning people of the second class may have results no less disastrous than plans made by the evil-intentioned people of the first class. Which only shows, yet once more, how right the Buddha was in classing unawareness and stupidity among the deadly sins.

i can’t wait i can’t wait i can’t wait. i woke up this morning and all i could think was:

LIFE IS GREAT. THANKS, UNIVERSE.

beingness.

if your dreams can open up to include me
i will fold into
their completeness,
their subconscious drift –
a mirror of our world
built on fantasy and impulse,
simplicity in pure beingness.

well, everyday is inexplicable.

nonsensical nonsense,
clicking and unclicking
day-night destroyer
continuity death jam.

surreal aptitudes,
meaning(-)making meltdowns,
bloorble blarble.

—

do i feel sick?
godamn, i can’t even tell.
it is so much a me i am unwilling to admit.
but i am not the only one not self-chin-checking the soul enough.

double standards.
prairie float.

island universe.

tilt-o-whirl.

tucked into the illustrious folds of this past evening was a version of myself i hope never to encounter again — not five months from now, not ten years from now. not when i begin to grow grey-haired and pock-brained, not even when i realize that i am alone and unloved, do i want this depressant version of myself to emerge again. what i saw this evening was neither me nor a respectable twin; it was me as defined by the energies of others, swept up by the pep and the step of consumptive fevers and allayed fears. it was me, had i never seen the world, never loved a person, never truly lived a moment in my life.

all evening, their affectations feigned distinguished forms. they attracted attention through the droll — discussions of stock markets and housing booms, wage increases and pension plans — all boring me to slack-jawed, blurry-eyed disconnect.

the warning is there, floating around amongst the distractions. “life is not being lived completely!,” it cries, but they heed it not. they have not the desire, but just as much lack the means; their feeble minds cannot even conceptualize the details of an alternative plane. but mechanized biological reactions flash bright red indicators. action speaks where a limited comprehension of self cannot.

their version of living life to the fullest can be found in every over-sweetened dessert and hyper-caffeinated drink they can’t help but order. beneath every thoughtless payment for consumptive delights, a fighting animal instinct struggles, scratching at the walls of the reptilian brain. with hopes of signaling to the rational mind, it primal screams: “beyond your confines lies freedom!,” but its oblivious brother heeds it not. it goes on devouring.

tonight, their sugar courses through my veins. i shake occasionally in the pacifying lethargy. i can’t help it; my rational mind asks questions.

other than in this love sector, everything totally makes sense. why is that. it made sense before. is it a temporary curveball that will make sense later? does it make sense already but in a way that is simply nonsensical to my human self but makes sense to my purer self? is it a test of determining whether my purer self can shine through the bullshit and accept it not making sense until it does again — as a sort of reward? is the lesson to be learned one of transience — that his presence in my life is short, but perfectly-directed, at this point in my life?

(written in portland.)
march 31st, 2011

—

april 20th, 2011
looking back… i still don’t know how the situation is going to work out, but it’s been a long while. and this is the feeling i’m left with and another lesson learned…

before i left portland to come to the bay area this trip, i was back to sleeping on my sofa at 2939 for a couple of days, because i had subletted out my room. the feeling was extremely peculiar. this time around, i was lying on the same couch, but the bliss was no longer present… instead of being giddy with late-night texts and promises of future meetings, i was instead left with yearnings for communication which had once been so smooth… and questions! endless questions!

the same space, once inhabited by a particular moment that made me so elated with my — no, our — fantasy life that it had me proclaim, “vivimos en los cielos, en las fantasías, donde nada puede tocarnos,” was now occupied by a deep and very real sense of nothingness. it was all loss. how could such a space be punctuated by both so deeply? and most obnoxious of all… these feelings were now confined to a fucking couch, of all places, its godamn velvet cushions soaking up the most extreme of my emotions, a permanent ridiculous reminder of the fickle nature of man.

—

on april 15th (it seems so long ago now), i wrote this poem. it explains, in a sense, the regret i have for taking fate for granted, in some sense.

 

In my pride, I forsook the unseen.

I boasted faith.
I traded chance for glory.
I claimed divine knowledge.

Of these acts of high treason, the unseen took note.

Ever astute, it restored balance.
It revealed mastery through rule.
It showed mercy in experience.

It fractured my spirit, while piecing anew.

any given idle moment.

idiots
look towards the stars
until a lack of conviction
exposes their falsehood,
renders them expired —
before mighty constellations
have time to take note,
to move towards
infinite grace.

limp
beneath celestial wonder
they cradle head in hands,
beg even for blindness –
to offer sweet vindication
under cover of black.

the garden.

all of those dandies,
two thousand poets:
gather to birth flowers.
from their fingertips,
hand-crafted lies.

all of those roses,
tulips, and violets:
just nightshade and poppies.
never truly gardeners,
dandies pretend.

their hands remain clean,
unsullied.

their words remain intact,
unchecked.

deceit and betrayal run wide the page.
poison and death run rampant the field.

__________________________________

inspired in form and structure
by baudelaire — it’s true.

the humor in this is that
i wouldn’t be thinking in poems otherwise.

so for that, thanks.

i am like water and fire. what a crustacean.

when you can no longer write
and your soul can no longer read
i am no longer a character in your play
and there is no me -
no charming reverie,
no nighttime joint dream,
no surreal waking fantasy.
tout sont morts avec l’apathie.

distinguished as
a distinction from others
may render you to be,
this gentleman
in your mind’s eye
leaves no path to entry.

he may as well be fake.

 

the impassioned real
cowers behind a mannequin body
gripping honesty
the way every coward ever does.

but saying as such
would excuse you from the equation
though you are the perpetrator,
or, as you’d prefer, the writer.
only you craft through inaction,
rather…

 
 

precedence in my independence from caring too much.

aish

i am here, as i was a mere two weeks ago, in a mental state that is a complete 180′. in the worst of ways… mostly tolerable, simply because of my current general state… but largely intolerable, in a reality-based, grounding sense of the idea.

the issue lies as much in not knowing as it does in not knowing if i would know, were something to happen. the human mind goes diving into the worst possible scenarios… the worst case survival handbook has not the answers here, though! this is not jumping from planes without a parachute. this is not starting a fire with no matches.

it was fine. and i had a three hour greyhound ride; i made it through two-and-a-half of it worry-free, ideas abounding, in the positive sense. but by the last half hour, realism had appeared and pushed me out of my fantasy world just enough to bum me out. so it goes. i’m sure by morning i will be feeling a bit better, but the nagging “what the fuck” will no doubt remain, lingering like so many chocolates crammed down my throat today. only less delicious, and more like the phlegm that makes the voice sound funny occasionally.

what does adoration count for, anyway, and ultimately, how many care for more than just themselves?

this post has been updated and re-updated a few times now. it’s 1:15am. i skipped out on going to the white fang show at holocene just because i was cold and kind of bummy. i just want to write, and writing seems fantastic, it being the catharsis it is, but the words simultaneously feel superfluous. instead, i just am staring at the screen, in some sense, just reading what i’ve written, wishing i could write more, but not knowing what more to write… moreso than what i’m writing right now, that is. i’m stopping. i’m off. i’m quitting.

—

(funny side note: our greyhound bus driver was driving for the first time from seattle to portland cause she’s just transferred locations. had to have random passengers read her directions. wtf? ha.)